So Are You To Me
by AriaAdagio
Summary: Post-4.11 MerDer one-shot. In Vino Veritas.


**_Author's Notes: I told myself I was not going to write anything else until I was finished with LST, but, honestly, it's only hindering my enjoyment of writing lately, and so I figured I'd finally let myself go. This is a scene I've had envisioned since the end of 4.11, and I have been wanting to write it since then. At the moment, this story is a one-shot, but I have left the door open to keep running with it if I decide to (a la SOSG). We'll see what happens._**

The title of this story is taken from Eastmountainsouth's song, So Are You To Me. I highly recommend listening to it. This is a very experimental piece. I had a ton of fun challenging myself with it. I really do hope you enjoy it :)

Dedicated to Maraschino, HBR, and CatCollector. I hope your days get brighter!

* * *

She is sitting in the dark on the couch, listening to water rumble against the rooftop of her mother's house. For the first time in weeks, she is alone without being surrounded. Izzie and Cristina are working thirty-six hour shifts. George is never around anymore unless Izzie is there, and Alex is out. Just... out. She suspects he is spending time with Lexie. Derek is not there, but she no longer expects him to be.

Ever.

The thought of that brings her musing back to the rain, and she stares. Light from the lamp on the street corner cuts through the windowpanes and paints dim squares against the wall above the television. She can see the waver and splatter of the raindrops as they warp the square she happens to be gazing at.

She loses herself there, and all her thoughts cluster and slow until her mind is nothing but a field of glaciers. She knows she is inadequate, and she hates that she knows it, but has no idea how to fix it. She was trying. Before.

She thought she was doing well. But then he said words like house, and he pressured her to declare a forever with him. She can't deal with him saying things like that, no matter how hard she tries to force herself, because when he says words like that, all she hears are words he's said before.

_She's my wife. _

_I'm walking away._

_I don't know if I want to keep trying to breathe for you._

_Put me out of my misery._

Words like these have jaded her, and she knows that hearing more would be the windshield to her fly. She wants to trust him, but she can't. She can't, and he wants her to move, and she can't move. She can't be anywhere else but here, wishing she wasn't. So, she lets him be with... her. The nurse. Rose.

And she says nothing.

She doesn't want to watch him date and move on, but she likes the silence. Her voice locks up whenever she sees him passing in the hall, or fumbling with the keys to his black Lexus out in the parking lot, or sitting alone in the corner of the cafeteria with a cup of strawberry yogurt, staring into space as though it's the only peaceful place left for him. She likes the silence, and she only gets it when she doesn't speak to him. Except she hates the silence. It means she is alone, and she doesn't want to be.

The rainfall hastens, and it thrashes the sides of the house. She watches the ripples in the squares of refracted light become a constant pulse. When haphazard thuds land against her door, Meredith almost doesn't hear them because she is lost in the roar of the water, wondering how the rain can be so deafening but seem so quiet. She glances up, wondering if she's heard something besides the rainstorm.

The slam arrives again at the door. It sounds as though a bear is trying to paw at the wood, uncoordinated, only concerned with what it knows might be inside the house. Food. Food, now. Must get.

She answers the door, biting her lip. Perhaps Alex has forgotten his key. Except as the door squeaks back along its hinges, the wet scent of rain and grass and fresh air hits the back of her throat, cold-kissed wind slips along her skin, and she doesn't see Alex. She sees Derek.

He is sopping. His hair curls down in wet, dripping tendrils. Dark circles hug his eyes as though he is haunted, and the white silk of his button-down shirt is plastered to his chest. His black suit hangs against him as though it weighs forty extra pounds. He's pinned a red rose to his lapel, but it wilts, and a petal falls to the ground in surrender to the downpour as she watches. His body sways. She half expects him to slosh, but he doesn't. The petal crunches under his shiny black shoe.

"What are you doing here?" she asks.

He blinks but says nothing, as if he didn't expect to get this far. Then his expression flattens out into confusion. She's seen that look on his face before when he's stumbling for words. A five letter word for pinnacle or whatever. He has no idea what to say. He doesn't have any words at all.

She notices the glassy haze that's taken away the soul she's always loved to search for in the deep streaks of blue that grip his dark pupils. Ruddy color flushes his cheeks. Another scent wafts against her, sharp, tangy. She remembers it well from the many nights she has spent in a strange bed in a strange place, not caring because it made her feel better for a day. Barley. Fermentation. Whatever.

The wind slams against them. His body wobbles, but she can't attribute it to the wind. She wonders if he thinks the earth is tilting.

"Did you drive here like this?" she said, glancing behind him.

His black Lexus is parked crookedly by the curb, one mud-spattered tire cutting a trough in the grass. The passenger side door is hanging open, and she can see the hazy white noise of rain falling through the shafts of the car's headlights. The engine is running.

"I came to see you," he decides after a long consideration. His voice is slurred, and his gaze is fever bright and unfocused.

Fear quivers in her chest, unwanted. He could have killed... He could have died. "You reek," she snarls, hating that she cares. "What--"

Even drunk, Derek can glower. "I didn't fucking drive, okay?" he manages. He waves behind himself, and a shadow reaches forward to slam shut the passenger door of Derek's car. When Derek pulls his hand back to the front, he over-corrects, and his whole body plows forward against the door frame. "I, um..." His tongue is too thick for his mouth, and the words stumble away from him. A deep, disgusted breath heaves from his lips. His other hand arrives to help steady himself, only to miss the door frame entirely.

She doesn't hear the murmur of his Lexus as it pulls away.

"Jesus, Derek," she whispers. Without thinking, she reaches for his shoulder. The wet, cold silk of his suit slips against her fingertips. She tries to ignore the tight cords of his lean muscles just underneath. She remembers what he looks like without the suit on, and she hates it. She hates everything about this, but she can't stop herself from helping. "Sit before you fall."

She pulls him into the house. He follows, stumbling. The threshold confounds him, and a frustrated grumble of sound escapes him as she draws him into the kitchen. Slowly.

"I just wanted--" he says, panting as his body falls into a gangly heap against one of the kitchen chairs. "I..."

"Do you want some aspirin or something while I call you a cab?" she says.

A cab. She must call a cab. A cab is still helping, right? But it's helping in a way that doesn't involve her. Yes. A cab. The faster she gets him away, the sooner she can return to her silence. The sooner she can return to the moments when she's sure that never speaking to him again is the right course of action. The sooner she can return to the moments when the feel of his shoulder doesn't make her insides quiver.

He shakes his head, but the movement is overdone, and it looks strange on him. Derek is a very graceful person. She's never seen him stumble. She's never seen him unable to deal with the fact that he has limbs. Derek is never unsure, and it scares her.

"I don't want a cab," he says. "I just want..."

_Put me out of my misery._

She folds her arms over her chest, forcing herself to remember the words she doesn't like. The words he always says. "Seriously? Seriously, Derek?" she snarls, trying not to blunt her tone as she watches him crumple against the place mat with a groan. She's never seen him ill before. "And what's with the formal wear thing?"

A puddle is forming under the chair. Splat. Splat. Splat. The tips of his pant legs are dripping water. His hair hangs in strings that she wants to run her fingers through. He is drenched, and his skin starts to tremble. Drenched and cold. Part of her wants to wrap her arms around him.

She doesn't offer him a towel, and she stays back against the stove. The sharp handle juts into her back as she recites things in her head. The aspirin is in the cabinet. She must get the aspirin. And she needs to call the cab. What's the number for the cab company? Has she ever even used a freaking cab? She has a car. She drives. She could--

No.

The place mat scrunches as his fingers clench. He winces as though the light is a scalpel to his eyes. A thick, drunken syllable falls from his lips, but is followed by nothing else. She remembers the rose at his lapel. A snort of disgust rapes her throat. She's glad she hasn't gotten him a towel, and she hopes the rain will carry away the crushed petal on her doorstep before she has to see it again.

"Crap, you were out with her, weren't you," she says. "You were--"

"She's not my girlfriend," he replies.

"Then what is she, Derek?" she said. "Your friend that you kiss?"

"Yes!" he slurs emphatically. "It was..." His hand makes an odd, haphazard, wavy gesture that doesn't help his point. "Just the once." His lips don't like making words for him. "Before. Before you told me you wanted me."

"And the other dates you've been on were what exactly?" she retorts. The refrigerator hums. She wonders why it does that. She thinks she might need to clean the kitchen soon. She doesn't care about aspirin anymore. She wants to not be here, saying words she hates, trying to hate him and only managing to succeed in shoving everything she feels away for nanoseconds at a time. She shivers. "Derek, we're through," she states calmly. She must stay strong. "I don't know what you're doing here, but I'm calling you a freaking cab, and you're going home to vomit on your own. Crap! I can't believe you--"

A syllable falls from his mouth. She hears no words. According to his face, his world has just imploded. She doesn't want to prod. She wants to get the aspirin out of the cabinet, and she wants to call the cab. Except she...

"What?" she says. The look he gives her makes her wish she'd gotten the towel after all. His body is trembling and cold, but in that moment, she wonders if the glaciers in her head hold a candle to his. He has a lot of thoughts. And she wants to touch him.

She hates that she wants to touch him.

A heaving sigh rolls through his loose frame. "I'm forty," he says.

Bitterness slips down her throat, clenching and coiling in her gut. A part of her is sad that she's missed it. She wants to know what it's like to celebrate something with him. They've never gotten the opportunity. So many other things always seem to get in the way. She hadn't even realized she didn't know when it was until that moment. His birthday. "So what?" she says, not sure whom she is speaking to anymore.

His body straightens, and he stares. His gaze wanders. "It's my fucking birthday, Mere," he spits. "She took me out to celebrate. Then we went to J--" His coherency falters. He collapses against his hands. "Joe's," he adds, but it is a sound of misery. His index fingers find his temples. "Oh," he groans, and his suffering pinches every ounce of her ability to convince herself that all he needs is aspirin and a taxi.

Her hand opens the cabinet. Finally. She doesn't reach for the aspirin. She reaches for a glass. It sparkles in the dim light. She catches her reflection against the crystal. She looks haggard. Her muscles hurt, and she takes a breath. She has to calm down. She has to stop... She counts to five and forces everything to stop. Her body sinks. Her quads loosen. Her grip slackens. She breathes, trying not to imagine the scent of him as he slides against her skin. She always likes his cologne. She always likes the way his shirts smell after he's worn them. She always likes... She shakes her head, pulling the glass from the cabinet. Her fingers slip against the faucet. She turns on the water. It sloshes against the crystal. She carries the glass to him and sets it in front of him.

For a while, he doesn't even look at it. He is enamored with the wood grain of the table. His fingers roam in circles against his temples. He tries to find something soothing about the motions, but from the pinch around his eyes, he can't find anything of merit. She nudges the glass toward him and goes to retrieve the aspirin.

"Small sips," she says as she hears the glass scrape the table behind her. A hollow sound slides against her ears as the glass fails to leave the table despite his guidance. When she turns around, working at the screw cap of the aspirin, he's finally lifting the glass to his mouth. "You'll just heave if you take big gulps."

His Adam's apple winds a trail down his throat as he tilts the glass back and, abruptly, it swings back up along its path when he swallows. She remembers teasing his throat between her teeth. He likes it. He makes a rumbling sound sort of like a purr when she does it, and it vibrates against her lips.

He sets down the glass and looks at her. "I suppose," he says. His scattered brain interrupts the flow of his words. "Suppose you have experience."

He winks, and his torso wavers. He means it to be a joke. If he weren't so inebriated, she might find a sparkle in his eyes, and his voice might sharpen with wit instead of dull with slurs. She sets the bottle of aspirin on the table, far enough away from him that he will have to get up to reach it, and clenches her teeth, annoyed that even now he somehow finds a way to point out her dysfunction.

"Shut up," she hisses, and his loose, smiling expression vanishes. He blinks, and his body jerks as if she's skewered him. "Just shut up, Derek. Stop talking."

"I don't want anything from you," he says, which only hardens her anger into a fiery, whirling ball in the pit of her stomach. The words have started again, and the silence is gone. Instead she hears dissonance, and she feels as though someone has slammed a tuning fork against her skull. She bites down, clenching her teeth so hard her jaw starts to hurt. She will not yell. She will not care. She'll walk to the other side of the kitchen, pick up the phone, and call him his cab. He needs to go. He doesn't need to be here.

"That's a load of crap," she says. Again, she wonders who she's arguing with.

His left eyebrow arches. He regards her with a longing expression that makes her insides twist. "I mean right now. I just... Wanted. To see you."

She sniffs, indignant. "While you're drunk," she says.

He doesn't answer. Instead, he reaches forward clumsily for the aspirin. It takes him several swipes to realize his arms aren't long enough. His fingers clench the side of the table. His suit rustles as he moves and shifts in his seat, a precursor to standing.

If it were Alex, or George, or Cristina, she might have laughed, but she doesn't find it funny now. There is something foreign about the Derek she finds herself staring at, and her lips spread apart in an open gaze of... She doesn't know what to call the emotion, but she decides he's like a puzzle made of a solid color. Blue. Indigo. Something melancholy. He's trying to connect the edge pieces and work on the larger picture, but he can't. Nothing fits. He has a jumble of confusion that he doesn't know what to do with because it all looks the same to him, but in reality it's all cut different, and nothing fits where he thinks it should.

He is broken.

He slogs to his feet and begins the three feet of epic journey to the bottle. The pills clink as he fumbles with the cap she has loosened for him. "Tried to make you go away, but you were still..." He searches for a word as he sweeps his palm against his mouth. The pill ends up between his lips only by chance. He doesn't bother taking it with water. She watches his Adam's apple ripple down his throat and tries to ignore the tightening in her own. "There. At the bottom of the damned sh-- shot glass."

He finds his seat again. He decides the water glass is fascinating, and begins to speak to it instead of her. She feels neglected, but in a moment of painful familiarity, she can't seem to bring herself to speak. His shoulders slump. "Please," he slurs. "Can I stay here tonight? I'll stay on the couch. I just--"

The glass doesn't answer him. Silence pulls the air into clots of tension thick enough to give her a stroke. She rubs her arms, up and down, up and down, ignoring the heat of friction. She feels a different heat. It burns in her lungs. Her eyes water.

"Seriously?" she snaps as she finds the hate she's been begging for. How can he do this to her? How can he come to her after a date with Rose and beg to stay. She remembers all his words in detail, how all the pretty ones end with slams to the gut. Fury finds her hand, but she can't bring herself to slap him. She doubts he would feel it anyway. Instead she finds the aspirin. Pain shoots through her bones as the flat of her palm connects with the bottle. Pills plink onto the floor, and the bottle rolls. She pants. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she snarls. She points toward the kitchen door. "Get out. I don't know why I let you in in the first place."

He seems impervious. He greets her ranting with a blink and a sway. "Do you have any..." He loses his thought for a moment, but he seems to think, at this moment, that it is the most important question he can ask. His brow furrows. The look in his eyes is desperate. She offers him the moments he needs to finish. "Scotch?"

The world falls down around her. More words that she hates. Insensitive. Freaking. Jerk. Rage festers. "No, I don't freaking have any scotch!"

She is lying. She keeps an old bottle of his favorite single malt in her liquor cabinet. Laphroaig. She knows he likes the strong, peaty taste. She doesn't know why she kept the bottle he left behind when he packed his things. She hates scotch, so it sits in her cabinet, perennial, collecting dust while the tequila bottle next to it continues to change from week to week.

"Please, let me stay here tonight," he begs. Derek Shepherd begs her, and she cannot help but sway. She can never say no when he begs. He rarely does it. "I won't bother you. I'll just... Please. Please, Meredith."

She sits across from him. His posture relaxes into a slouch, as if he realizes through his drunken haze that he has somehow been granted a momentary reprieve. She stares at the fleshy circles under his eyes. Through the stupor, he seems tired beyond the simple need to sleep. His hair is plastered to his head. He runs his hand back through the mat of it, which only leaves him with a scraggly, tangled mess.

"Why?" she asks.

He gives her a dark, desperate look that tears down every brick she's managed to pile onto her flimsy charade of a wall. She hates to see him like this. She's been seeing him like this ever since... She can't recall the last time he's been as happy as he should be. Her throat clenches around a giant, constricting lump. She will not cry. She shouldn't care. She doesn't. He's gone. He is not hers.

His hands clutch the glass. The meniscus of the water shakes as his grip trembles. His tongue finds his lips, and he wets them. A raw, dry sound erupts from his throat, as if he finds himself stumbling around the same tightening vocal cords she is experiencing.

"Because I'm fucking forty and I can't go home to my trailer alone," he says. His words are clear, abrupt, direct, and his look is dour, as if he's mad that the alcohol can't blur any of the things he wants to get rid of. "I was supposed to-- I was."

He swallows, and when his gaze catches hers, she finds a glistening haze of water filming his eyes. Derek Shepherd is close to crying. Derek Shepherd. She has never seen him flail like this, and she's certainly never seen him cry. She wonders if, before this moment, she thought him capable of it.

He broods. He is dark. He wallows. He can snark and strut like an annoyed, self-righteous peacock. He can simmer with anger and play up wounds. He strikes like a snake, fast and sharp and mean. He likes revenge, even if he will never admit it. But she has never seen this.

"This is all fucking wrong," he says. "This is f-- Fuck. Fucking."

His voice fades into silence. He cannot find the words again, and unlike before, he doesn't even appear to try. He stares at her, and in his eyes, she sees everything she's felt in the past few minutes, everything she tries to force into herself. Hate. Hate getting trampled by other things.

"Derek..." she whispers, realizing, for once, that they have found common ground, and they understand each other without anything but a stare. It is an ugly thing to share, but it is something. It is more than what they've had since... Addison.

"I hate the way you make me feel," he says, his tone dropping into something dark and angry.

Realizing his emotions and hearing him vocalize them are two different things. She cannot help but feel slighted. It stings.

"Oh?" she retorts, unable to stop herself. "And how do I make you feel, Derek. Please, tell me how I make you feel."

"Like the loneliest person on the fucking planet," he answers.

She puffs out a frustrated breath of air. This is a rehash. This is-- "I said I wanted to be with you, Derek." She has already put herself out on the limb for him. He coaxed her onto it with pretty words. He cut it down with ugly ones.

She doesn't trust him.

"After weeks of dragging me around like a fucking doormat," he says, his expression darkening further. In that moment, his eyes seem onyx. His wet hair makes him seem wraith-like and wrong. She watches the blood flow out of his knuckles. His skin squeaks against the water glass. His jaw muscles work. She watches the subtle shift of his ears as he bites and relaxes and bites and relaxes. "After kill--" He stumbles on the word. "Killing yourself."

She blinks. He says it as though he was there with her, as if he knows the meaning of every breath she took from the moment she hit the water until the moment her limbs stopped working. She chooses to ignore the accusation. She can't respond to it when there is a half-truth there, waiting to be pried out with more words. She didn't kill herself. She didn't save herself either, and she knows it.

"I didn't drag you!" she says, addressing his other grievance instead. This is one she can refute. This was one she is sure she-- "I wanted to break up, Derek. You're the one that suggested sex."

She wants to blame it all on him. She knows suggested is a polite word. He did not suggest. He kissed her, and she cannot say no when he kisses her. She really does want the hate to win. Except it doesn't. She knows she is not a victim in that moment when she sees her own state of mind all over his face, corrupting his chances at happiness like a blight.

Broken.

"I thought you'd..." he stutters.

"Thought what?"

An uncoordinated shrug rolls down his shoulders. He fumbles with the lapels of his coat. With some loose, floppy wrangling, he removes it, leaving nothing but his white dress shirt plastered to his thin, toned body. It grips the bulge of his pectorals, and she can see his nipples, erect from the chill. She wants to touch him. He loves to be touched. The coat sloshes onto the floor as he drops it, uncaring about its fate.

"I thought you'd get better," he confesses. "I wanted..." His eyelids fall shut. The glass rotates in his hand. Clink, clink, clink. A deep, sucking breath inflates his torso, and then he sinks lower than he started. "I needed you to get better."

"I was getting better," she says. "I said I wanted to try..."

"You lied to me," he replies.

"And you're a hypocrite, Derek," she snaps. "Why the hell did you come here, anyway, if I make you so lonely?"

The look on his face answers for him. He needs to be near her no matter how it makes him feel. He needs it. He tries not to. He doesn't like that he is addicted to a dysfunctional woman. He likes her, but he hates that he likes her. She knows exactly how it feels.

"I'm calling a cab," she says, and she stands, but she stops when he groans.

"I'm going to be sick."

A frustrated, clipped sigh falls from her lips. She wants to scream. She wants to take it all away and make it better for him. She wishes he'd never come. She's glad he's come, because even if the words are ugly, they have said more to each other in the last fifteen minutes than they have said in the last year. She wants to touch him, and she hates that she wants it. She wishes he would wrap her up and whisper at her without any reason other than knowing she is sad or upset. She knows he's done it before, but the memories are dim and distant. He is too damaged to do it now. He wants the same from her, and she has never given him that. She understands, and it kills her.

She manages to shove the trashcan in front of him just in time for him to lean over. His body jerks with miserable retches. She hears liquid splats, and the sharp scent of bile hits her nose. She is a doctor. She's seen countless people vomit. This is the first time it cuts into her gut. Her fingertips find the space between his shoulder blades and she rubs the wet silk of his shirt. His ribcage shakes. She wants to take the shirt off. She wants to tell him something. Anything.

His hands flop listlessly to the side of the trashcan when he is done. He is panting. His nose is running. He sniffs, and he looks awful when his bleary eyes meet hers.

"Please, don't make me leave tonight," he says. "I can't go home tonight."

She can't say no. She just can't. She hates that she can't. "Fine," she says. "I'm going to bed." She will not get him the toothbrush she still keeps for him, or the maroon t-shirt he doesn't know she stole. She will not find him sheets. She will not bring him a towel or a blanket. She won't pick up the aspirin either. She doesn't care when her feet crunch against the scattered pills, leaving smashed clumps of powder behind.

"Meredith, I love you," he says. She is in the hallway, and she stops.

She waits for the but, the conditional. It never comes. All she can hear is the plop, plop, plink of swollen raindrops against the windowpanes, and the soft rasp of his breathing, quiet and deep and awe-filled. She's heard that sound before. Heard it on so many nights that seem, now, like snapshots that belong in a history museum. It's as though he's just woken up beside her in the dark, drunk on the faint musk of recent sex and the vision of moonlight laving her naked skin.

She waits and waits and waits.

Perhaps because he's drunk, he's simply taking longer. But he doesn't speak, and his declaration hangs there. She blinks, and her fingers clench. Once, she popped a glove with her nails and sliced into a woman's heart. Now, she's slicing her own skin. Why? Why does he have to say this now?

"And you're an ass," she replies, her voice a low growl. The hallway seems to narrow into a long tunnel. She can't deal with this. She can't deal with the frustrating sliver of hope that's cutting at her heart like a scalpel. She hates that even after all she's learned, she still has hope. "You know where the clean sheets are. If you can stumble there, you're welcome to them."

He sighs. "You're never going to say it again, are you?"

"Whatever, Derek."

"Wait. Please. Just..."

He is begging her again, and she cannot stop herself from turning. He sits at the table. His posture is tense, as if he wants to follow her, but knows if he stands, he will fall. She wants to let him lean on her. She wants to help him out of his wet clothes and take him upstairs. She wants many things. The glimmer of these thoughts jab at her like pins. She wonders if this is how he's always felt. Knight in shining whatever.

"What, Derek," she says, her voice quiet. "What is so important that you came to torment me?"

"Mark drove me here," he explains, as though he expects it to mean something to her. His voice is becoming clearer as his body processes the alcohol. He still reeks.

"So?" She is drawn to him. She walks back into the kitchen as he clasps his hands together and ponders the floor. She wants to know. He is talking. To her. She understands more about him now than she ever has before, and it is a new, ugly feeling, but she wants more. She wants it like an addict.

Her feet crunch over the aspirin pills. She doesn't care. She finds the seat across from him that she abandoned.

"I don't have a house," he says. "I don't have kids. I don't have a wife. I don't have a fucking picket fence or a dog. All I have is the backstabbing man whore who slept with my wife on my bed on my favorite sheets." When he looks up and meets her eyes, she is slain. "I don't have anyone, Mere."

I am alone, his gaze tells her. She knows the feeling. She knows it like a lover.

"You have her," she counters.

They are speaking rationally, though he is drunk, and she is furious. She feels like she is on a precipice, and this is their last chance to figure out the canyon looming between them. She has his puzzle pieces sorted, and the picture is so much clearer.

He is so much easier to talk to when he is like this. When he is brave, he wears himself on his sleeve. The alcohol brings his brooding out of the gnarled tangle in his chest. She feels less dysfunctional knowing that he is the same kind of gutless coward she is. She never knew this, because before, he always had words to cover it up where she had only silence.

Derek Shepherd is a coward, and she has never realized it before.

"I have her," he agrees softly, "But she's not my g... girl..." He cannot even say the word. "She's just a friend who has nothing to do with... With before. And she's not you. She'll never fucking be you."

He seems angry about this, angry in a deep way that makes one's bone marrow seem like it is squirming, angry in a way that is past flashes of agony and stuck in constant ache. She wonders if he is angry because he cannot turn Rose into Meredith, or because Rose is simply not Meredith by definition. She hopes it is the latter. Hope twists her gut, but she no longer thinks it is pathetic.

"And whose fault is that exactly, Derek?" she says. "I was there. I was ready. And then Addison showed up." Her anger finds her again. Derek always has words, and she has never told him how much they hurt. They are speaking. They are actually speaking, and she must say it now, before she loses her nerve. "And since then you've done nothing but fuck with my head and fuck with her head and fuck with everybody's head!" Her fury sharpens the words coming from her mouth. She cannot remember the last time she has spoken with such guttural bravery. Derek Shepherd is a coward, and she knows it, and it helps. "Does Rose even know you're just friends?"

He flinches, and he does not answer her question. His hand goes to his chest and he rubs it over his heart, tendons curling his fingers tightly enough that they shake. She has wounded him, but for some reason, it makes her feel more justified, even as she wants to reach for him. She still wants to touch him, but it no longer seems like a horrible idea.

"I wanted you to want me, and you jumped off a pier," he replies. It is not the response she expected.

She must defend herself. "You told me you didn't want to breathe for me!"

His feverish eyes widen. His body snaps back against the seat like a whipcord, like she has struck him with a physical blow. For the first time that night, she finds him behind the alcoholic haze, staring back at her, breathing. The depths have returned to the deep blue of his irises. His pupils tighten as he looks at her, and she is suddenly worried that this conversation will end. He is sobering up. Not a lot, but enough. She wants him to be a coward. She can talk to him when he is a coward.

"I told you I didn't want you to act like you didn't need help when you did!" he counters.

She blinks. "That's not what you said, Derek."

His fingers find his temples. He leans forward. "I said..." His voice is tired. "I... Oh." His eyes shut, and his crows feet pinch tighter into misery, but she cannot tell if it is realization that makes him shudder with ache, or the recession of alcohol. She licks her lips, astounded. This is one of the first times she has heard his point of view, plain and without doctoring or blame.

"You make me feel like crap, Derek," she confesses, and his expression collapses further into woe. "You make me feel like an inadequate freak. Nothing I do is ever enough."

His fingers tighten. "You're not supposed to..."

"I'm not supposed to what?"

He sighs, and the expression that meets her eyes is an exhausted one. "I didn't want to fight."

"Then you shouldn't have come here," she tells him. She is proud that they are fighting. And relieved. And hopeful. But she cannot blame him for what he expected. He uses words, she uses silence. They would not be fighting if this were any other night.

"If you'd wanted me, and you'd meant it, it would have been enough," he says, his voice definitive.

"I did mean it!" she says. She feels as though the fight is gone, and now they are haggling over grievances. The hope burgeons, and she doesn't hate it at all. She holds it tight, clinging to the feeling that if they can just have a few more moments like this, something that has been broken for a long time might be fixed.

He finds the glass and begins to fiddle with it again. He must do something. The need is evident from the way his body twitches, but she decides he is probably still too drunk to pace. "You froze up over the house," he says.

"Which you used as a damned test to see if I'd bolt or whatever," she says. Her heart beats in a constant throb. It hurts, but it feels so good.

His head shakes again. "I didn't--"

"You freaking did, Derek," she says. "I'm not dumb."

She is gratified to see from his expression that he agrees. Emphatically. Meredith Grey is not dumb. She feels less freakish, and she wants to thank him, but that would be silly. He sighs. "I just wanted you to be excited about something," he says. "With me."

Everything in the room stills. She hears the thudding of the rain outside easing to a soft patter. The house snaps occasionally as it settles. His glass scrapes hollowly against the table.

"You've never told me you love me, except the once," he adds. "Before. I say it, and you stare blankly. You never talk to me about anything. I still don't know why... I don't..."

Her heart hurts. "You only tell me with ultimatums," she says quietly.

She knows this isn't exactly true. After he decided to give up on Addison, he had come to her, and done nothing for her but said he loved her and then walked away, leaving her to make her own choices. She hadn't answered. And then she had made him compete for her, as though he were somehow on an equal level with a man she had only known a few weeks.

Now, she knows he is a coward, and the moment means even more to her. She has a disturbing feeling that if she had responded differently, then, none of this would have happened. Then she is mad, because she knows she was justified. She cannot love at his pace. But...

"Because I'm trying to get you to--" he flounders. "To..."

"To what, Derek?" she snaps, though she is angry at both of them now. She is not a victim, and she knows it. She knows it deeply. They have both done this. "To what! God, I'm so tired of this. I'm tired of trying to figure out what you want, and I'm tired of trying to bend for you, so you can have your dreams and your... idealized picket fence thing! Picket fences suck! Families suck. It all sucks. And what about me? What about what I want? It's never about what I want, damn it."

Except it has been. It has been a push and pull. He has, at times, demanded more than he has given, but so has she. The dynamics have shifted like the push and pull of tides. The end was a moment in which the pull was him, and so it is easy to make him the villain. Derek Shepherd is not a villain. He is a coward. She understands this now.

His frustrated sigh makes her heart twist. "I keep trying to give you... I... What do you want, Mere? Because it's certainly not me."

"And who do we have to thank for that, exactly?" she prods, though the twisting hope is screaming. That is a lie. She wants him. What hurts is that she is starting to understand how he has gotten the idea that she doesn't. But they are talking, and she must keep it that way.

He looks down at the table. His eyelashes sweep down over his eyes. He breathes, as though he is trying to remind himself of her scent. "I still don't know why you jumped."

"Derek, I got knocked into the water, I didn't jump," she explains.

"You didn't swim."

"I did. I just..."

"You didn't want me enough to swim," he says. The words dig into her like thorns and stick. The look on his face presses them deeper, until she is breathing tightly and unable to do much more than stare at him. She wants to tell him that he is the reason she didn't give up, but her vocal cords have twisted up, and she can't speak. She wishes she had found her bravery sooner. She wishes he had gotten drunk sooner. She wishes a lot of things.

"I..." The word squeaks out between her lips as though she were a pricked balloon. She cannot get any other syllables to work.

"I get that your mother and your father messed with your head, Meredith," he says. "I get that you feel inadequate. I even get why you want to take things slowly. I just... I don't understand why you never want me. Am I that awful? Am I always going to be that moment when I chose wrong to you?"

"I do want you," she says. She does. She does want him. She wants him so badly that there is an ache in her chest, and she feels as though a giant piece of her is missing or crushed. The hope swells like a cresting wave. She babbles. She flails. "I mean I did. I mean..."

"You never talked to me about anything."

"I told you about my mother," she says, flailing to try and explain. She feels as though she is vomiting. The words are rushing. Why can't she explain? "And then Addison--" He must know he wounded her. He must know why she doesn't trust him.

He does know. The look on his face collapses, and she gets the impression she has answered his question in the midst of her incoherency. His fingers clasp the side of the table. He breathes. His gaze wanders the room, lingering on every sight as though he knows it is his last chance to take it all in. "Okay," he says. "I'll go."

"What? I..." she stutters. "What? Wait." No. They are talking. They are talking, and they are haggling, and they are being, for the most part, rational. It can't end. It can't. It can't. The words string together like a mantra in her head.

He stares. His eyebrows raise. There is hope in his voice. And irony. "Now you want me to stay?"

"I... I..." She tries. She tries to answer him. She tries to talk. He is looking at her clearly. He doesn't seem drunk. He seems like Derek. He is condemning her for being wishy-washy, and she loses her nerve. "No. I'll call the cab."

She blinks, and the room blurs. She wants to find the phone and get him away from her so she can cry in peace. How did this conversation turn into this so quickly? How did...

He stands. His body sways. "I can do it," he says.

He sounds like he is getting ready to walk himself to the gallows. One step, and he is careening to the floor. His arms fold over his torso, and he stares up at the ceiling, blinking. The haze in his eyes is back, and he lies there, stunned. For a moment, there is panic. She stares at how close his head came to cracking on the corner of the table. Crushed, white aspirin stains his dark pants. His eyes slide shut, and he inhales. His face flushes, but he doesn't seem embarrassed. He seems like he has given up. He does not try to get up.

Her muscles start working again, and she looms over him. "You're a mess," she whispers.

He doesn't argue. His expression tells her to give him a moment, that the room is spinning and it won't stop. She reaches for him, splaying her fingers in midair. He touches her. His skin is cold, but he feels right, palm to palm with her. He squeezes her, and she imagines he is doing it to reassure her, not to catch his grip. Her fingers ache as they collapse against each other under the pressure of his hold.

She pulls back, heaving breaths to counter his dead weight. He stumbles to his feet with a groan. When he arrives at upright, he keeps on going, and sheer luck allows him to catch himself. His face finds her neck as she holds him. His breathing hits her skin. She wraps her arms around his body without thinking. His soggy shirt feels uncomfortable against her palms, but she doesn't care, because she can feel the tense muscles separated from her by the millimeters of silk, and she wants to touch him now more than ever.

She yanks at the fabric, pulling it loose from his waist, and slips her hands underneath. His back is freezing and smooth. She remembers the feel of it when he is warm, and she longs for it, rubbing him, trying to bring it back with friction. It doesn't work. He is chilled. And wet. And no amount of petting will fix him in this state.

He says nothing as she leads him into the living room. He sways, and his pale face indicates he sort of wants to vomit, but he says nothing. He is out of words, and he has become silent. Like her. He sits on the couch.

He watches blankly as she loosens his tie. It is a black silk tie, and it is ruined. Her knuckles brush the skin underneath his chin. She finds no stubble there, and the rain has not washed away the sharp scent of his aftershave. She remembers how good he smells when he dresses up. She remembers it from Cristina's wedding. She unbuttons his shirt, though she doesn't touch his pants. She doesn't think she can... She doesn't think that's a good idea.

He doesn't protest as she strips him. His shoelaces are knotted and bloated with water. They are hard to untie. His socks are easy to remove, and she is shocked at the chill of his skin as her hands brush the soles of his feet.

"Lie down," she whispers. She doesn't care that he is sopping wet and on her couch. She cares that he is sopping wet. He is still there when she comes back with the blanket she resisted getting for him, though she feels stupid for thinking he wouldn't be. For being surprised. Where would he go? Why? How?

His wet clothes are in a pile on the floor except for his pants. He lies against the pillows, staring at the ceiling. His skin twitches with shivers. He doesn't seem to care. He stares. The ceiling is his nirvana. He can find peace there.

"I wish I could take it all back, but I'm stuck here," he says, not meeting her eyes as she covers him with the blanket. "In this place." His voice is slurred, but she wonders if it is grief instead of alcohol.

It is a dark moment. She has been here before, thinking the same things he is thinking. She cannot stop herself from empathizing. She walks to the liquor cabinet and pulls out his Laphroaig. Her tequila bottle sparkles in the darkness, and she grabs it, too, watching the golden liquid slosh as she carries their escape to the coffee table. She does not bother with shot glasses.

He watches her return. His eyes focus on the Laphroaig, and his expression relaxes with relief. He does not question why she has it, or why she didn't admit to having it earlier. "Why can't we start fresh for real?" he asks as he sits up to take the bottle from her.

The blanket falls away from his body and rests at his waist, just above the belt that keeps his soaked pants from slipping off his narrow hips. He looks like he is naked. She sees the tufts of hair escaping from his armpits, studies the subtle curve of his muscles as they sweep up from the flat of his stomach to the slight bulge of his chest. Dark, raven brown hair collects in a wispy triangle at the center of his chest. She wants to run her fingers through it. She remembers that it is soft and downy, and when she licks him, he tastes fresh and... Like Derek. He is neither muscular nor perfect, but she thinks he is the most beautiful man she has ever known, and she has known a lot of men.

Unaware or uncaring of the scrutiny, he finds the bottle cap of his scotch with expert movements. There is nothing drunk about him as he takes his first swig.

She removes the cap from her Jose Cuervo, clinks the bottle against his in an almost celebratory gesture, and tilts it back. There is a liquid slosh. She does not bother with lime or salt or anything, and her face screws shut as the taste strangles her throat and knocks her sentience flat for several moments. She pants, letting the liquid settle hotly in her stomach, and she turns to him.

"Because there isn't fresh, Derek," she says. She is happy that the room is starting to spin. "There's just us. And we're a freaking wreck."

"We are," he agrees. For some reason, the hope returns. We are a wreck, she thinks. The words imply that they are acknowledging their situation. Not that they are ending it. They know that there is something to fix. They will fix it. Or try. It is liberating, and she wants to sob with relief. She doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't either. They fit. They match. They just...

Got lost.

Now, they are finding themselves.

They clink their bottles and take another set of long draughts.

They sit in silence, drinking, drinking, drinking, until she is hot, and panting, and wondering why getting up again would ever be a good idea. When she blinks, and she loses sight of the room, she feels like she is floating. Things seem happier, somehow, and she is very glad he is drinking with her. She usually drinks alone if she is not drinking at a bar.

His empty scotch bottle is resting at a crooked angle against his quadriceps, and he is communing with the ceiling again. His neck is tilted backward, and when he swallows with a gulp, she watches the wave of his Adam's apple roll down his throat. He blinks, and she sees that there are wet, glistening tracks streaking from the corners of his eyes to his ears. His hair is dry now, but it is a mess. Frizzy. Unkempt. He looks like he has lost something, and he doesn't know what to do.

He blinks again, and fat, ugly tears roll down his face. He doesn't do anything but stare. He does not wipe them away. They stick against his skin like scars. Derek Shepherd is not a happy drunk. "I am sorry," he slurs, and she can barely find the words in the long drawl. "I'm so sorry, Mere."

She tries to scoot closer, unable to stop the laugh that erupts from her lips when she must grab him three times to gain leverage to move. She cannot get coordinated. The room is moving, and she wants to take another shot of tequila. Her bottle isn't empty. She feels like he has shown her he is the superior drinker, and she must finish to prove that she is the champion.

Instead of reaching for the bottle, her fingers slide down his chest. He feels so good against her. She must get closer. Can she? He grunts as she slams against him, graceless and flailing.

"I do love you, you know," she declares. It is very easy to say when the room is spinning, he is in tears, and she has been alone for weeks.

He turns to meet her eyes, though he cannot meet them. His focus wanders, and his pupils do not allow him to find anything in the swirl. But his head is pointing his gaze in the right direction, and she sighs. "Not loved?" he says.

"No. I can't..." she explains. I can't give you up, she thinks. "I hate how you make me feel, too. I'm never safe.. Except..."

She thinks of the moments after he has orgasmed, twitching inside of her, and she comes down off her own mountain. His sweaty body slides against hers, and he heaves a giant breath as he comes to rest next to her. His arms wrap around her, and nothing can touch her in that moment. She feels safe then. He has claimed her, he is exhausted and spent, and she feels sufficient.

In those moments, she knows he will not leave her, because she gives him completion. During sex, she can give him what he needs without abandon, and he takes. He takes. He takes. It is glorious.

They are both good at sex.

"I want you to feel safe, Mere," he says.

For some reason, she decides tequila is a good response to this. She takes her bottle and sucks down another long gulp. She is surprised when he takes it from her and takes a lengthy swallow. He winces. She knows he hates tequila. His tears flow, but she thinks it might be because he is disgusted with the taste. His lips part, and he gags. Then he takes another swallow.

Derek Shepherd wants to be drunk as sin. She is happy she has a second bottle in the cabinet. Just in case.

"Then stop doing the bait and switch thing on me," she counters when the words finally arrive in her brain. She hopes he has not forgotten the line of conversation.

Abruptly, he laughs. His face flushes, and then the blush races down his skin. It covers his chest and his arms. The stench of alcohol wraps around her nose.

She steals her bottle back from his lax, haphazard grip, and takes another swallow. She wants to know what is so amusing. The bottle sloshes. She holds it up in the darkness, watching in fascination as the light from the corner street lamp pierces it. Tequila is fascinating. And bright. Gold is a cheerful color.

Meredith Grey is cheerful.

She still doesn't get what is funny, though. Slosh-y tequila is impressionistic. And pretty. And sparkle-y. It is not funny.

He turns to her. His lips curl with mirth, as if he has clamped onto the happiness she has found in the mire, and is borrowing his share. His index finger rises into the air, and he points at her with a swishy, indistinct motion. His smile looks ghastly in the grips of so many tear stains, but he is happy, and that is very nice. She likes it when he is happy.

"You used a fish--" He blinks. "Fishing meta... Met. Metaphor."

Now, she knows what is funny.

"Bait and switch has nothing to do with fishing," she informs him.

He seems perplexed by this. "But... Oh."

They both break out into sloppy laughter, and she curls against him. She is hot. He isn't cold anymore. It doesn't matter. He smells like his aftershave and like her tequila and like peaty scotch, and she wants more of him. His grip is pathetic and lax, but he holds her, and it is heaven.

"We're really drunk," she decides. And then she laughs some more. She doesn't need to feel brave anymore. She is the personification of brave. She is complete. And he is close to her.

"Like when. When I met you," he observes.

"Yeah," she slurs. "Like that." It is true.

She reads the sloppy, happy expression on his face. He has found humor in the dulling of his wits. He is no longer crushed or sad. He enjoys making a total uncoordinated fool of himself with her. He likes to be sitting next to her. She wonders if he is reading the same things off her own face. She cannot stop smiling because the room is spinning, and they cannot take advantage of each other if they are both too drunk for nerves or nos. They are just experiencing truth without hindrance.

She pushes into a kneeling position, trampling him as she shifts so that she straddles him. The blanket and his pants separate him from her as she leans against him to lick his throat. She has wanted to taste him for a while, and now she does. His skin slides underneath her taste buds, and she sighs. She remembers this. She runs her fingers through the twisted, damp hair on his head. Her fingers catch. She jerks, awkwardly trying to free herself, and she laughs some more when she cannot. She is stuck on him. He finds this funny, too.

"Derek," he says. The vibration of his voice hits her ears as she leans into him.

She blinks. "What?"

"S'Derek. My name."

"Oh," she replies. "I know that."

He shrugs. It is a cheerful, careless motion. "Just remembering," he informs her.

Somewhere in the haze, she remembers the evening she met him. She was wrong. He was wrong. They were drunk when she took him home, but not like this, not to the point where neither of them could stand or move or do anything coherent. They had been tipsy, and happy. Buzzed enough to offer sex to a stranger. Needing enough to offer sex to a stranger.

She is caught by surprise when he kisses her. The tequila and scotch have washed away the taste of bile, and she likes it. She likes it a lot. His lips slide against hers, and his tongue brushes her teeth. It is unskilled, and sloppy, but she doesn't care. The passion is not blunted, and she feels like he is plundering her. Her fingers scrunch up, caught in the twists of his hair, and his warm hands slide up the skin of her back, pausing on each ripple of her spine.

"Derek," she whispers. The room is spinning and hot. She is hot. She is burning. Her legs wrap around his waist as she finds herself underneath him. His weight is heavy, and he is panting. He is panting and fumbling, but his touch is like returning home. She doesn't care how clumsy he is as long as he continues.

Her leg hits something hard, and there is a muted thump, followed by a liquid glug, glug, glugging sound. "Tequila," she mutters into the warmth of his skin as he slides against her. In this moment, she strangely remembers that she has not placed the cap on the bottle. It can spill. It is spilling.

"Leave it," he commands.

She does. There is a thud as the shifting of their bodies sends his scotch bottle off the couch. She fumbles with his pants. She needs to get his pants off. The buckle of his belt is very complicated. His breathing is like a roar in her ears, and she no longer hears the pounding of the rain, only him, but he finds the time to laugh and pause despite the burning. They both work at the buckle, their fingers tangoing as they try to find purchase on something that isn't flesh.

"This is a stupid buckle," he says.

"Yes," she agrees. "Why did you wear it?"

"Buckles go with suits," he informs her. And then he laughs. "I'm in a suit."

"Only half," she whispers.

"You're not naked," he replies.

"No."

They are at war. She is fighting to get the belt loosened. She wants him naked. He is clawing at her shirt. He slips her knit pants down to her knees, and she feels air on her skin. They fight and tumble and twist, grunting, groaning. It is a long battle. They cannot figure out how to work their hands for anything other than clumsy touching, which they often stop to do. The movements are a blur. She wants more of him, and when he is finally pounding against her, flesh to flesh, she is in heaven.

The stench of spilled tequila and the alcohol on his breath cloys around her. She doesn't care, because he is near, and they have moved on from fighting to fixing. She likes the fixing. Her fingers stroke his naked back, marveling at the flex and roll of his muscles as he moves against her like a beast.

"Sex is hard," Derek comments stupidly, breathless. He takes her air away when he kisses her. The room spins around them like they are at the center of a moving carousel. She loves it. It is like a ride, a kaleidoscope, and it is beautiful.

His skin is warm. She tangles with the hair on his chest, the fuzzy line below his navel, and lower. She smiles as she licks his earlobe. She has the perfect response as she reaches to cup him. He is ready. "No, but you are."

They are silent, then. He doesn't ask her if she is ready. She is not sure he is sober enough to care. She is not sure she is sober enough to care. He finds her, and she gasps as he slides in.

They fit.

They have always fit, but now, on the carousel, she feels like she is going to die, and she knows why they call orgasms little deaths. She squeezes around him, and he stops altogether to moan, but he doesn't speak.

He needs her. He finishes very quickly. He doesn't have the capacity for skill or patience. She doesn't care. It still feels perfect as the wet seep trickles deep inside of her. He grunts and collapses against her, breathing, breathing. After a moment of recovery, he flounders against her, manages to slip his hand between them.

"You have to finish," he commands. He strokes her, over, and over, rolling around her center of sensation with even, relentless circles. For a moment, the spinning stops. She arches back against the couch as the tension lances through her. Her muscles clench. She claws him, scraping her nails down his back, clumsy, awkward. It is sure to leave marks, crooked and wandering. He doesn't make a sound, though she might smell the tang of blood. She is too lost to do anything but moan. She must come. She has to complete.

"Derek," she squeaks. The heel of his palm sends her into shivering relief, and they lie against each other, drunk and tired and spent.

She flops her hand against the coffee table, looking for something, and then she realizes the tequila is on the floor, soaking into her rug. She laughs as she listens to his hot, straining breaths against her body. She might need a new rug. Oh well. He is draped against her like a blanket. They are naked. Neither is cold. Neither cares.

"Do you have more?" he asks, floundering with the syllables. His voice is hoarse, and she barely hears it because he does not bother to lift his head. His chin is over her shoulder, and he is plastered against the cushions.

"What?" she whispers.

"Tequila."

"Yes."

She thinks he is going to ask her to get it, but then his breathing evens, and he is gone from sentience, his full weight on top of her. She lies there, silent, feeling the power of him as his body swells and empties with each breath. She is having a little trouble breathing, but she doesn't care. She does not want him to move ever again.

She rests her hands against the dip where his spine splits the left and right sides of his back. She traces down the line and rests at the curve of his ass. He is soft and warm. The room spins. She closes her eyes, gratified that she is still drunk enough to float.

She floats, safe.

And then she sleeps.

Light is streaming through the windows when consciousness returns. She regrets waking. She cannot open her eyes. He is still on top of her, snoring. There is a blanket on top of them that she does not remember. Sounds filter through the house. Loud sounds. Clanking. She wants to clap her hands over her ears, except Derek is warm, and she is touching him, and she doesn't want to let go.

"I can't believe I came home to **that**," snarls Izzie from the kitchen.

A mumble replies. Alex. "It would be less hypocritical if you hadn't done the same thing with George, you know."

Meredith swallows. Everything aches. She wants to bash her skull in. Everything is too loud and too bright. The only comfort she finds is in the weight of his body. And then, even that is scary. She is sober, and sick, and stuck underneath him.

What had they done?

She remembers it. She was not too drunk to remember. She is not sure if she regrets.

His muscles flex. His soft snoring abruptly ceases, and he snuffles. "What," he mutters. She hears a wet sound as he swallows and groans. "What time is it?" he manages. He shifts so that he slides into the space between the back cushions and her body, releasing her from captivity.

She is not sure if she wants to move or not. She is afraid. She doesn't want to open her eyes. He breathes, thickly, and for a long time, it seems as though he has returned to sleep. Her fingers find his hair, and she strokes him. She loves him. She does.

He seems calm, relaxed, and... At peace. She finds herself stroking his torso, marveling at the bumps of his ribs and the dip of his abdomen. She still cannot bring herself to find an answer for him. She does not know what time it is, and she is terrified to look. She doesn't quite want it to be the morning after yet. Or the afternoon. Or whatever it is.

"Please," he whispers against her ear. His voice is thick and hoarse, but much more composed. There is wakefulness there. "Let me take you out to lunch."

"What?" she blurts.

"We have to start again," he says. His arm snakes over her waist. "We have to. You can't... Please."

She blinks, and her eyes come open. He is staring at her. It is not as bright as she originally thought. The light has a dim quality, and she smells the coffee Izzie is making, the warm scent of breakfast food. Pancakes. Morning. Her stomach roils, but she can't peel her stare away. His eyes are deep and full with soul. They are bloodshot, but there is no hint of insobriety anymore, no hint that he does not have his faculties. She only sees the panic she feels. It is deep and tangled in his eyes, and she notices that his breathing is not even remotely calm.

"Please," he repeats.

She cannot speak. She slips out from under the blanket, shivering. The chill of the air slaps her skin, and she reaches for the first thing she can find. His shirt is dry. It covers her, and fits warm and smooth against her skin. She lifts the cuff to her nose and inhales. Her eyes burn at the smell. It is like him, and she wants him. She wants him, but...

Something predatory enters his gaze as he watches her, silent. She is in his shirt. It comes to a stop at her thighs. "Please," he says, again, grunty, emphatic.

Desperate.

"We can't start fresh, Derek. We tried that," she says.

He shakes his head. "Not fresh. Just again. Please."

For a moment, she cannot find words. He shifts under the blanket, and she can't stop thinking that she'd like to see him. All of him. She needs him. She wants him. She just doesn't need him or want him. Reality sucks.

She collapses into the chair across from the couch. His eyes slide shut, and he sighs. He pulls the blanket over his shoulders and buries himself in it as though he is freezing. She is stricken by how sick he suddenly looks. She is not sure if it is because he is hungover.

She is positive it is not because he is hungover.

She watches him lying there. He doesn't tell her to leave. He doesn't say anything. He breathes softly, as if he wishes he could go back to sleep, but he can't quite manage it no matter how crappy he feels. He wants...

"I love you," she says. She is sober, and she says it.

His eyes slide open. The light reflects against his irises, and she is slain by the depth. She is sucked into it. She wants to hold him.

"Please, don't hurt me again," she begs.

He blinks. "Please, don't shut me out."

They are slaves to each other. They cannot separate. They have the power to destroy.

She bites her lip. "I don't mean to," she says.

"I don't either," he replies. "I love you, too."

That is the crux of it, and again there is silence.

Again, she waits for the but. The if. The condemning thing that makes her regret opening herself to him, but there is nothing. There is nothing following the words. She finds his expression endless and devoted. He will stay. He will wait. If she just gives him an inch, he is willing to wait. He doesn't need to have anyone else. He doesn't need to threaten her. He just wants an inch.

"Don't talk to her ever again," Meredith says.

"I won't."

She folds her arms over her chest. They are haggling again. It feels good. It feels mature. And real. She likes it.

"What do you want for lunch?" she asks.

His eyebrows raise. "Just you," he replies.

"Okay."

She stands, swathed in the warmth of his shirt. Izzie and Alex are chatting in the kitchen. There is noise and brightness, but it doesn't bother her. The rain has stopped, and the world outside is a dull gray. She slides underneath the blanket and lies with him.

It is a scary morning.

But it is a good one.


End file.
